SIPRI Research Assistant Alfredo Malaret participated in the conference ‘Armed Violence and Vulnerable Populations: Improving arms control and violence prevention in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru’ held in Bogota, Colombia on 26-27 October.
The event was organized by the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress and the National Network of Citizen Initiatives for Peace and Against War in Colombia (REDEPAZ). The conference focused on a range of issues, including seizures, confiscations and marking of firearms in the Andean Community as well as illicit trafficking and the challenges facing the implementation of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). Government officials from Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, as well as civil society representatives, shared their national experience in addressing these issues.
During the second day of the conference Alfredo presented the online database Mapping ATT-relevant Cooperation and Assistance activities. The database is designed to help States and other stakeholders build upon past work and support the Secretariat to perform ‘the matching of offers and requests for assistance for Treaty implementation’ called for under article 18.3(c). Alfredo reviewed the ongoing expansion of the database to cover Latin America and the Caribbean, which is currently being carried out by SIPRI and the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC) with funding from the UN Trust Facility Supporting Cooperation on Arms Regulation (UNSCAR).